Tips for Getting a Free Criminal Record Check In Canada

Running a criminal record check on someone should not be automatically construed as an act of mistrust or paranoia. There are plenty of good reasons why a criminal record check may be a good idea, and in some cases, it may even be a legal requirement, rather than a declaration of opinion that says “I think you’re a bad person and want to know what you’ve been up to.”

But if you’re interested in running a criminal record check on someone, there’s one thing that needs to be made clear. An official check to see if someone has a criminal record means getting access to the RCMP database. No other information network in Canada has access to criminal records—or the absence of—so every time you want to conduct a criminal record check of this nature, you are attempting to access the RCMP network.

It should be clear that getting that kind of official information is unlikely to be free. For an official check to see whether there’s the presence of a criminal record, you’ll have to go through some kind of group, company or agency with access to the police records. This is always going to cost money, especially if you are trying to volunteer with a group that requires a criminal criminal record check before allowing you to participate. In most cases, you are expected to pay out of your own pocket when wanting to volunteer with a group that has a safety requirement that no volunteer has a criminal record.

Of course, one way to get a criminal criminal record check conducted for free is to apply for a job that also has a requirement that employees do not have a criminal record. In such cases, should you pass a certain threshold for selection, the employers themselves will pay for the check, though you yourself may not necessarily be given the full details of the results.

There is one way to conduct a check that doesn’t cost any money, but it involves effort on your part.

The Internet Criminal record Check

While you need to go through official channels in order to conduct a criminal record check, if you want to conduct a general criminal record check, this is something that you can do on your own. There are good reasons for wanting to do this sort of thing on your own. If, for example, you are hiring someone for a marketing or social media position, you will want to see what kind of social media presence that person has. If you’ve just gone on a date with someone, you’ll want to know more about who this person is, and how they present on the Internet.

In these instances, if you have a name and/or physical address, or even an Internet username or nickname, this is all that’s usually required to start a check. Many people, especially of the millennial generation, have very active social media and Internet profiles, making them extremely easy to track. You can quickly find people on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks to see what their interests are and how they choose to interact with others.

This may be a bit more difficult to execute with older individuals who do not have a widespread Internet presence or the outlier younger people who are “Internet anti-social.” For the majority of people in Canada, however, enough years have passed, and the ubiquity of forums, social networks, and comment sections on websites is broad enough that the average individual that uses a smartphone and interacts with friends will leave a very large, easily traceable “digital footprint” that can be tracked with minimal effort. Once you get the critical pieces of information, the rest is doable from your own computer or phone.

But remember, in order to get an official check for the presence of a criminal record, there’s no avoiding going through proper channels. That is not free and will require some kind of service fee be paid out to access the police database. Of course, paying a small fee to conduct a criminal record check in Canada is worth it if you are planning on hiring someone, or if you want to learn about your own status. Contact us today for more information.

Author: Pardons Canada

Pardons Canada is a national non-profit organization which assists individuals in removing a past criminal offence from public record. We undertakes all necessary steps and procedures for removing your criminal record, including: Pardons/Record Suspensions, Purges, Photograph & Fingerprint Destruction, and U.S. Entry Waivers.